File No. 860c.01/162
The Ambassador in France ( Sharp) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 9, 12.35 a.m.]
5776. [Seyda] requests transmittal of following for publication.
The Cracow Kurjer Codzienny carries a despatch from Warsaw to the effect that the new Polish Government has entered into an agreement with the new Bohemian Government on the strength of which the Skoda [factories] are to furnish munitions to the Poles.
German agents posing as representatives of the police visited a number of Polish shops and homes under the pretext that they were looking for hidden firearms; these same men, however, took away with them various articles of apparel; the articles thus stolen within a few days represent a value of over 1,000,000 marks.
The German Government asked the present Polish Government in Warsaw for assurances that General Pilsudski, the former commander of the Legionnaires, now held prisoner of war by the Germans, will restrain himself from further anti-German activities in the event that the Germans release him and thus permit him to accept the office Minister of War to which he was chosen in the new Polish coalition ministry in Warsaw. The Polish Ministers and Pilsudski himself answered that the release must be unconditional.
The Germans ordered the Polish papers in Russian Poland to refrain from writing anything concerning Prussian Poland. Those papers were ordered at the same time not to publish the order itself.
In Skierniewice near Warsaw the Polish people held a tremendous patriotic demonstration in commemoration of the recent political and military events. A number of Poles residents of Russian Poland participated in the event. The Germans thereupon ordered the Poles, still technically subject to Prussian authority, to leave at once Russian Poland and return to Prussian Poland.
Stockholm reports state that Wilhelm, the son of Charles Stephen, the unsuccessful candidate for the Polish crown in the Polish state as the Central Powers wanted to create it, is leading the Ukrainian troops that invaded eastern Galicia and the provinces of Cholm and Podlasie. This item needs further verification.
The correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung sends in an item from Kiev to the effect that Szulzinow, the Ukrainian representative at Sofia, appealed to the representative of Spain to intercede with his. Government to ask the United States and the Allies not to insist that the German armies must evacuate Ukrainian territory. The Ukrainians claim that the German armies are needed to maintain order and prevent the spread of Bolshevism. The Ukrainians desire [Page 885] that the Germans leave the country only after the organization of a Ukrainian Army. It is very peculiar the Ukrainians make the claim of desiring to maintain order and prevent Bolshevism and at the same time are forcing their Army composed principally of Germans and pro-Germans into eastern Galicia and the provinces of Podlasie and Cholm thus trying to keep in their possession the Polish lands given them by the terms of the German Brest Litovsk peace pact. The people in these provinces are 86 per cent Polish, 11 per cent Ukrainian and 3 per cent German.
According to advices just received from confidential sources, the Regency in Warsaw has caused the resignation of Swierzynski, the Premier of the new coalition cabinet in Warsaw which represented all of the Polish parties except the extremely Radical Socialists and decided pro-Germans. The real cause of the friction that brought about this serious turn of affairs is not yet known in detail though it should not be forgotten that Swierzynski on behalf of the new Ministry issued an exposé of the policies of the Ministry which to say the least was very displeasing to Germans.